Behold, I am against
thee, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the
smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions: and I will cut off
thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no more
be heard.

Nahum prophesied during the reign of Hezekiah, probably about 150 years
after the Jewish Prophet Jonah. According to historians, the city of
Nineveh was destroyed about a century later precisely as Nahum
predicted. In fact, the book of Nahum has but one subject - the
destruction of Nineveh.

Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, the peoples who captured
the ten tribes of Israel, which had separated from Judah and Benjamin
at the end of the reign of King Solomon, I Kings 11.

The Assyrians, in essence the people of Nineveh, were a fierce fighting
machine and killed and destroyed many warriors and their sponsoring
states.

The great ethical lesson of Nahum is that the character of God makes Him
not only "slow to anger", and "a stronghold to them that trust Him",
but also one who "will not at all acquit the wicked".

As you will notice when you read the extended portion of our devotional
today, it is a prophecy that is one continuous story, which does not
yield to analysis. I therefore will not analyze the reading for today
but will only mention that as you read Nahum you will see the holiness
of God, which must deal with "sin in judgment".

As an aside, I mention to you that Biblical Nineveh is located in Iraq
in the north. What Nineveh was in yesteryear is modern-day Mosul, one of
the key players in the ongoing drama in war-torn Iraq. This is the area
of the Kurds, a people that want their own nation.

Someone has said, "what goes around, comes around". These Bible lands of
yesterday are the battlefields of today and the future. As I mentioned,
the Kurds, one of the three groups in Iraq that will form a national
government, are a people who would rather break off from Iraq and become
their own nation.

This area is an "oil-rich" section of Iraq which is one of the reasons
that the late Saddam Hussein gave the orders to have so many of them
killed during his reign as leader of Iraq. In fact, there were thousands
of them that were "gassed" to death under Saddam’s leadership.

The
only thing that must happen before all of the above prophecies are
fulfilled is that the Rapture must happen. All that has been, and is
going on in Iraq is strong evidence that the Rapture may be very close
to being fulfilled.

PRAYER THOUGHT: Help
me to learn that you're holiness, Lord, must deal with sin in judgment
and also that events of today seem to be setting the stage for Bible
prophecy to be fulfilled.